Three Kinds of Sentences
A complete sentence is writing’s basic building block. Remember when Goldilocks broke into the three bears’ house and ate their porridge? One bowl was too hot. One bowl was too cold. And one bowl was just right. Sentences are like that. Fragments are too short. Run-on sentences are too long. Complete sentences are just right.
What is a Complete Sentence?
A complete sentence has a subject, a verb, expresses a complete thought, and has proper punctuation. It can be as simple as Alex sings, or as complex as Alex sings loud enough to drown out the fist fight in the next room. In both cases, Alex is the subject and sings is the verb. They both express a complete thought, but the second sentence gives more information to your reader.
All sentences begin with a capital letter and have ending punctuation. Most sentences end with a period. Other ending punctuation includes question marks for questions, and exclamation marks (also called exclamation points) to convey surprise or excitement. A note of caution here, exclamation marks do their job best when you limit their use.
What About Fragments and Run-ons?
Generally speaking you won’t use fragments or run-ons in formal writing. Fragments are sentences that are missing either the subject, the verb, or they don’t express a complete thought. People speak in fragments all the time. Imagine two friends talking on the phone.
“Parents.”
“I know.”
“Always nagging.”
“Homework?”
“Yep.”
“Same here.”
“Well, gotta go.”
“Later.”
“Bye.”
This is an extreme example. Now here is the same conversation in compete sentences:
“My parents are driving me crazy.”
“I know what you mean.”
“They’re always nagging me.”
“Are they bugging you about doing your homework, again?”
“Yes they are.”
“I have the same problem.”
“Well, I have to go.”
“I’ll talk to you later.”
“Bye.”
Which conversation sounds more realistic? I like the first one best.
Run-on sentences are just a string of poorly punctuated sentences pushed together. Again, they are most commonly used in dialog when capturing a character’s stream-of-conscious speaking style. If your sentence has more than two ‘ands’ or ‘buts’ chances are it’s a run-on that can be made into two or more sentences. Be especially careful of run-ons when you write about a series of events. If you are using the phrase ‘and then’ you are probably writing a run-on sentence.
Sentence fragments and run-ons can be used effectively in dialog, because people really speak that way. Complete sentences are the best option in all other circumstances.
Check out this link for basic sentence structure definitions and examples: http://www.butte.edu/departments/cas/tipsheets/grammar/sentence_structure.html
